How Democratic Majority for Israel justified an Israeli demolition operation that left 11 families homeless

Mark Mellman is a big-shot Democratic consultant and pollster who has been hired by some of the most powerful Democrats in D.C., such as Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader.

Mellman also runs a lobby group called Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI). I first reported on DMFI in December 2019.

Fast-forward to November 3, 2020. You may recall that day as Election Day. It was also the date of Israel’s biggest demolition operation in a decade. Israeli bulldozers stormed the West Bank community of Humsa al-Fuqa and quite literally wiped the village off the earth.

The demolition drew outrage from 40 Congressional Democrats.

But after Congressman Mark Pocan wrote a letter demanding the State Department condemn Israel’s actions, DMFI went on the attack.

DMFI was silent in public about the destruction of the village. But I obtained a memo they sent to Democratic members of Congress. The memo justifies the demolition. It blames Palestinians living in the village for “knowingly put[ting] themselves in danger.”

For some odd reason, DMFI didn’t want to make this argument in public, but now you can read all about it, and the memo itself, over at +972 Magazine.

The memo is a peek into the increasingly heated debate over Palestine between progressive and establishment members of the Democratic Party — and a look into how DMFI is trying to interfere with efforts in Washington to criticize Israel’s occupation.

That’s all for now! See you soon.